Bob CollinsYou’d think by now people would know it’s a bad idea to utter the “B word” at an airport but an Indian man did it in Grand Forks anyway with predictable results.
Paraman Radhakrishnan, 53, was charged with terrorizing, after an airport employee told authorities there was a bomb in his bag, the Grand Forks Herald reports.
Radhakrishnan and colleagues who had been working as energy consultants with Polaris in Roseau, arrived at the airport on Saturday only to be told their Delta flight — not actually operated by Delta, of course, but that’s another story — was overbooked and that they would have to drive to Minneapolis to catch their connecting flight back to India.
Radhakrishnan said he was offered a flight voucher by Delta, and a rental car to drive to the airport. When he requested his bag, he was told it would be waiting for him in Minneapolis and was already on the plane, which was departing.
He told the Herald he was shocked that the bag had not been removed, because in international travel, bags are removed from flights if the passenger is not on board. Radhakrishnan said he was upset and told the ticketing agent that it was a security violation.
“I said, ‘What if there was a bomb in the bag?’ ” Radhakrishnan said.
There it is: the “B word.”
Fifteen minutes later, he was under arrest. No travel voucher. No car rental to drive to Minneapolis.
“It was just bad communication,” he said.
He has a wife and daughter at home in India, but he’s required to stay in North Dakota until his next court hearing in March.
